Banana Soft Serve – Recipe 44 #osgcookbook challenge

This was an impromptu endeavor, taken up out of an insane craving for something sweet on a night when no such thing was to be found in our kitchen. My husband and I were chilling on the couch, binge-watching It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, when the craving hit. I told him something along the lines of, “Are you into trying something a little weird?” (Get your minds out of the gutter people) and he said yes. We proceeded to blend a bunch of frozen bananas and peanut butter. Crazy times I tell you!

It is a rare event that my hubby gets involved in the kitchen. He is far better than I am at mainly every other household task; in fact I have not touched a vacuum in years! But when it comes to cooking, he prefers to leave me to my own devices. This time, he came in to check out what was happening with all the loud noises coming from the food processor. “I think you need to add almond milk or something,” he says. “But there is no almond milk in the recipe!” I exclaim. Well…. 5 minutes later and several pauses to open the processor and unblock the severely weighted down blade, I gave in and added a few spoons of almond milk. It helped so much that I continued to drizzle more in as the blade was running, which really got things moving. Thanks husband!

Now, I don’t know what banana soft serve looks like without the addition of almond milk, but with it (I’d say I added about a quarter cup to the 4 frozen bananas I used), the soft serve had the texture of a Wendy’s Frosty. Amazing if you ask me! I have a pretty darn good food processor, and I even used pre-chopped little chunks of banana rather than whole bananas, and the machine still just could not handle it. I would highly recommend adding the almond milk, not only for the sake of your appliance’s motor, but because it actually turns out being a nice consistency! And you get to satisfy your sweet tooth that much quicker!

Moving on now, I’m sure you are wondering, as was I, what does it taste like? Well, shocker… it tasted like banana. I would definitely make it again, but I would have to make some tweeks to suit my personal taste. One would be to up the ratio of peanut butter to banana. I’d say the ideal amount would probably be about one tablespoon of nut butter per banana. I’d also add a pinch of salt next time, as the whole thing just kind of lacked something. With that said, the add-ins are key in my opinion. Coconut and peanuts were great, chocolate chips unfortunately got too cold and lost their chocolaty flavor as a result. I think I’ll add a spoonful of cocoa powder in the future. Maybe a little vanilla extract too. Don’t get me wrong, banana soft serve is an awesome alternative to ice cream, and it is easy to make with only two base ingredients – just stock your freezer with bananas. I just think it could benefit from some minor adjustments.

So next time you are struck with an attack of the dessert munchies, I encourage you to try banana soft-serve. If nothing else, you will have a story to tell all your friends. But I’m pretty sure you’re also going to really like pigging out on a delicious Frosty-like dessert that has none of the fat or bad stuff in it. I’d love to hear from those who have made this themselves! Give me your feedback!